Senator Kay Hagan Drafting A Letter For Probe In Healthcare.gov Site

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan says she wants more answers about what led to the poor roll-out of the federal health insurance exchange, particularly on the contractors hired to perform the work up to the Oct. 1 launch.

The Greensboro Democrat told reporters Tuesday she's drawing up a letter to circulate among colleagues seeking information from federal auditors. The letter will be sent to the Government Accountability Office & Health Human Services Office asking for an independent study.

The draft letter asks for the projected total cost of the health care web portal and how problems can be avoided for future federal IT projects. She plans to finish up the letter by the end of the week.

"I'm leading a letter calling for a full investigation into the contracting process surrounding Healthcare.gov. Taxpayers are owed a full and a transparent accounting of how the vendors contracted to build this site failed to launch this site successfully. It is important opportunity to understand why this launch went off so poorly. So, we can improve the way government undertakes large IT projects going forward, whether it is VA benefits or Medicare or any other project. We need to figure out why this happened and make sure this doesn't happen again," said Hagan.

Hagan already has signed on to legislation that would extend open enrollment by two months and force insurers to reinstate canceled policies.

She's among a handful of Senate Democrats seeking re-election next year who've become more vocal about the web site problems.